A place for some seriously wild ruminations

Is Accepting an Election Outcome a Sacred American Tradition?

Most of the media is buzzing about just one of Donald Trump’s answers to the many questions posed at last night’s debate in Las Vegas. Moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump whether or not he would respect the outcome of the election, whatever it might be. Wallace asked the question because of statements Trump has been making on the campaign trail that the election process is rigged. So Trump answered from his heart that he would have to wait until the election was over to judge whether the contest had indeed been fair and democratic.

The puppet masters, and the commentators and reporters in the media they own, immediately attacked the answer like dogs that hadn’t been fed in a week. They hoped to take down the Republican nominee and his America First message once and for all.

Baring their sharp fangs and drooling puddles of sticky, rabid goo out of every side of their mouths, the establishment elites and their minions claimed Trump had disavowed a long-held tradition of the peaceful transition of duly elected democratic rule. They commented and reported that Trump had refused to accept the 2016 election’s outcome and labeled Trump’s answer as a shattering breach of political etiquette and democratic values. Trump’s otherwise stellar performance against a debate veteran like Hillary Clinton was completely blown up and disintegrated into nothing by that one answer, or so they claimed.

Well, that’s one way to give your candidate, criminal Hillary Clinton, a win; but what are the facts? Keeping in mind that I incline toward Trump and away from Hillary, read and judge for yourselves whether I am providing you with facts. Then make up your own minds.

First, did Trump say that he would NOT accept the outcome of the election? No, he did not. He said he did not know yet whether he would or would not and that he would have to wait and see how the process played out. Review a recording of the debate for yourselves to see and hear that fact.

Strike one against the elitist reporting and commentating.

Second, did Hillary answer the question one way or another? No, she did NOT. Wallace asked both candidates the question, but when it came time for Hillary to answer, she launched a matronly tirade against Trump for his indefinite answer. She never affirmed nor denied that she would accept the outcome of the election. Yet the media has not reported that!

Strike two against the elitist reporting and commentating.

That kind of avoidance-answer typifies Hillary and her deceptions. She used it elsewhere in the debate, perhaps most notably when Wallace asked her if she would consider using ground forces in the Middle East. Listen carefully to how she phrased her answer: she said, no, she would not use boots on the ground “as an occupation force”.

If you like equivocation and dissembling, then you have to appreciate her masterful phrasing. If Hillary is elected, she can decide to use boots on the ground and simply say they will not act as an occupation force but will … blah blah … simply engage in fighting for some purpose. We can have troops in a war without them being an occupation force. Wallace failed to qualify Hillary on her answer, as the media routinely makes such failures because they prefer to paint Trump with their sensational labels.

Third, are the establishment elites and their media minions correct? Do Americans have a sacred, inviolable history of the peaceful transition of power in our republic? They said it so loudly and clearly and repeatedly in their post-debate analyses. Is it not a sacred, never violated truth???

No, it isn’t, and the repeated claim that it is shines a light on the fundamental, perhaps deliberate, dark ignorance of the media. It also spotlights their shameless, whorish partisanship.

In a post-debate interview on Fox News, former Secretary of Education William Bennett utterly destroyed this repeated claim.

Strike three! Here are just a few of the facts that relate to this media prevarication.

Does anyone remember the hotly, bitterly contested election results of 2000? Did not presidential loser Al Gore, the Democrats, and every organ of liberal orthodoxy fight the election of George Bush? Does not the Constitution itself contain instructions on how to deal with contested election outcomes? And did not the Supreme Court have to render a decision to settle the matter?

Does anyone remember the Civil War? Do any of the clowns who report and commentate on the news know that within three weeks of Abraham Lincoln’s election as president South Carolina took up its articles of secession and passed them? The secession articles specifically cite the election as a spur to their action:

“A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the states north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery.”

Correctly or incorrectly, many southern states contested Lincoln’s election, not on the basis of fraud, but on the basis of the unconstitutional character of the officeholder and his policies.

Whether the basis for contesting the outcome of an election is the belief a counting error has occurred, fraud, or the unconstitutional character of the president-elect or his policies, or some other reason, election outcomes have been contested in America, and the transition of power has not always been peaceful; in fact, it’s even been bloody.

America was born in a bloody transition of power from tyranny to liberty, republican democracy, and self-determination. Our Forefathers warned us in the Declaration that there may be other times beside the one they faced that would call for such action:

“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government… .”

None of the above is written to suggest that now is the time for such a change but rather to put the lie to the assertion that some sacred, inviolable principle prevents a candidate from contesting what he or she believes is a faulty election outcome.

In baseball, we cannot exceed three strikes. For this piece, however, we will to illustrate the deeply flawed message that is being propagated, especially to the exclusion of reporting on the substance of Wednesday night’s debate.

So, fourth, why does the media continue to say Trump’s position on the election outcome is unacceptable if it really isn’t? The reason the media takes the stand it does is because it has little ammunition against his actual positions and statements (yes, they did have ammo in regard to his statements recorded on the Access Hollywood video).

What the media does is to hang up what are called “straw men”. Straw men are arguments an opponent can attack, but they are not the actual arguments the other candidate is putting forward. The person erecting the straw arguments hopes to create the impression that they are the actual arguments of his or her opponent.

So, Trump states that some of the illegal immigrants are murderers, rapists, drug dealers, etc., and that he will kick them out of the country. Hillary says Trump insults Hispanics because he calls them murderers, rapists, and drug dealers. Thus, Trump’s position appears to become a xenophobic one (or racist, though that term is misapplied) when in fact it isn’t. Same with his desire to enforce America’s immigration laws. Deportations happen all the time and have been for decades, and other countries deport illegals, too. It has nothing to do with the ethnicity or race or whatever of those being deported.

It’s the same with the election outcome. Let’s rephrase the election outcome question another way. When you pose it to yourself, help yourself by thinking about it without reference to Trump or Hillary:

Would you support an election outcome, even if no one had ever before contested an outcome, if the winner employed fraud to obtain that outcome?

Would you support an election outcome if you knew the votes had been miscounted?

Would you support an election outcome if the candidate achieved office unconstitutionally?

For example, suppose Ted Cruz had won his party’s nomination (forget whether you like or dislike him), but a person filed a lawsuit arguing Cruz was Canadian, not American. A day before election day, the Supreme Court rules Cruz is Canadian and does not meet the constitutional requirement to hold the office of president. It’s too late to take his name off the ballot, and Cruz wins the election anyway.

Do you support Cruz’s election anyway? Do you group yourself with those who think it cannot be allowed and must be opposed? Do you think the Democrat nominee would settle for the outcome for the sake of an alleged “time-honored, peaceful transition of power”? Should he? Or does he have the right, even the responsibility, to challenge the election outcome?

Whichever way you answered these questions, I hope you can see the inherent difficulty in a wildly broad brush stroke that eliminates any and all challenges to an election outcome.

Strike four against the puppet masters and their media minions.

Finally, is Trump’s reservation about endorsing any election outcome, based on his claim the process is rigged, without any merit?

In light of the massive number of hacked emails from Hillary, her campaign, and the Democratic National Committee that Wikileaks has provided, have facts not come forward which lend credence to both Trump’s claims and Bernie Sanders’ claims that the nominating and general election process is rigged?

I can barely stand Megyn Kelly, but last night she grilled Donna Brazile, a Democrat who appears on CNN, and Brazile stuttered and stammered through the interview, utterly refusing to answer who gave her the debate questions ahead of time and which she told the Clinton campaign she had. Other emails detail a synergy and a cooperation among Hillary, the Democrats, media elites, and media members to give Hillary an advantage and to disadvantage Trump. While these particular actions may not constitute fraud per se, they constitute a raw attempt to manipulate the outcome of an election. At the least, what’s going on is anti-democratic.

Strike five against the elitist reporting and commentating.

In my next post, I will review discussion on this morning’s (Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016) Morning Joe program which adds to the impression of an elite ruling class hellbent on imposing its will on the electorate.